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Welcome Back
Better late than never!
We’re here for yet another post-mortem - and this one is for the big one: Naked Kaiju Woman #2. This was easily our best campaign yet and I’ll be sharing it all with you today - with a twist.
I’ve summarized each slide a little bit, but the real meaty version of the post-mortem is going to be in the audio and video. If you really want to dig into the data, I recommend starting there!
Before we get into any of that…
Updates
The prelaunch for Naked Kaiju Woman #3 is LIVE!
We’re aiming for a Spring launch, but it’s never too early to follow the campaign!
In the meantime, Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 2 is LIVE and FUNDED!
There’s still plenty of time to join in and grab yourself a copy. For paid backers, we’ll be doing a live look at the behind the scenes of the campaign behind the paywall.
And now, let’s get into the details of the campaign for Naked Kaiju Woman #2, starting with…
Funding
Funds Raised
Day one of NKW #2 outpaced every single campaign we’ve done before, even surpassing what we raised in three days with issue one. In one day, we raised more than any non-Naked Kaiju Woman campaign through its entire run—the next closest was From Parts Unknown #4, which barely fell under our day one total.
Total Amounts
Naked Kaiju Woman #2 blows everything out of the water, even issue one. This is one of the few profitable campaigns right out of the gate—all printing costs and shipping are covered, unlike issue one which ran into tariff trouble that put it into an unprofitable state.
Most Popular Pledges
The digital catch-up was #1, meaning lots of new backers getting issues one and two. The second most popular was just the digital copy of issue two, followed by the physical catchup bundle at #3, which actually outpaced people just coming back for number two alone.
Average Pledge
With the giant backer count making all the other numbers bigger, the average pledge ends up being pretty average compared to most campaigns. It was just slightly higher than issue one because of the catchup tiers, but otherwise pretty in line with everything else since the production costs and ticket prices were similar.
Funding Stats
We had 754 backers with an average pledge of $627 per day and went 2,013% over goal. The big surprise was receiving over $3,000 in late pledges—people who missed the campaign but still wanted in badly enough to pay the late fee.
Cost Split
Shipping will be about 25% of costs (this is still an estimate as we haven’t done it yet), ads were 3%, and printing came in at 18%—slightly higher because we had to reprint issue one main covers when they sold out. The biggest cost is production at 54%, which means paying Rafael for inks and JP for colors, plus the two variant covers from Ricardo Faccini and James Edward Clark.
Backers
Now let’s look at who made this all happen…
Backer Count
We ended with 754 backers, beating issue one despite it nearly overtaking us when it hit its “final days” spike. Day one of NKW #2 did better than almost every full campaign we’ve done—only Crazy Little Thing Called Love’s entire 28-day run just barely beat our day one numbers.
New vs Returning Backers
We got pretty damn close to 50/50—363 returning backers and 389 new backers, which shows issue one brought a ton of new people into the fold and issue two got many of them back. Very happy to see this project continuing to get so many people in the door.
Follower Counts
Following in pre-launch is crucial—86% of pre-launch followers ended up backing versus only 29% of post-launch followers.
Pre-Launch vs Post-Launch
Out of 123 pre-launch followers, 106 ended up backing the campaign—that’s 86% conversion. Meanwhile, only 165 of the 576 post-launch followers backed, closer to 29%, because people who see the full campaign and choose not to back don’t come back nearly as often.
Returning Backers
Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of returning backers came from Naked Kaiju Woman #1. We have decent numbers from other campaigns like From Parts Unknown and Crazy Little Thing Called Love, but pro wrestling vampires aren’t going to speak to the same people looking for naked kaiju women.
Multi-Return
Most returning backers have only backed two campaigns—I’m guessing NKW #1 and #2. We still have five people who’ve backed all 10 campaigns, and seeing so many others at six or seven backers means the world—every backer counts, but those sticking around thick and thin really allow us to do big things.
Units - Digital vs Physical
We shipped over 1,100 digital comics and just under 1,000 physical comics across 400+ packages. If proves why digital comics are an important source of funding. If I threw everything on GlobalComix at 3-5 cents per read, I’d be giving up over 1,100 sales and this would not be sustainable.
Backers - Digital vs Physical
It’s almost a 50/50 split between digital and physical backers. Digital goes much further in covering production costs since I just send the file, but I’m always happy to have comics in people’s hands where it means they care enough to find space for it.
Backer Locales
The overwhelming majority of physical backers are from the US, which means any tariff or customs changes really complicate things for me. We had almost as many UK backers as Canadians this time, and I credit JP for a lot of that UK support—our colourist / hypeman really puts in the effort.
Backer Profiles
About three quarters are power backers who regularly back campaigns on Kickstarter. Only 2% were first-time backers, with casual and core backers rounding out the rest—those are people you really have to win over, but once you do, they’ll back.
Backer Platform
It’s almost 50/50 between mobile and desktop backers, which is why you have to think about the mobile experience when building campaigns. The best advice is to launch your campaign on your phone and see how it looks—things like the rewards page work completely differently on mobile.
Backerkit Launch
BackerKit Launch brought in about 15% of total funding with a 33% open rate and 5% of recipients actually pledging. At about $100 US for the service, it definitely paid for itself, though the pledge manager costs were quite high this time due to how well the campaign funded—I’m considering switching to Kickstarter’s pledge manager in the future to avoid this.
Reflecting on the Campaign
How do I feel now that the campaign is over?
I feel great! This is the best performing campaign we’ve ever had. It’s bittersweet because I wish every campaign could reach these heights—Naked Kaiju Woman completely blows the rest of my work out of the water. It stands on its own as easily the most successful series I’ve ever put together.
I’m happy to continue working with Rafael and JP for as long as we can. Right now we’re planned for five issues, but I have enough stories to go beyond that. We’ll have a complete story to collect with the first five issues, and I have additional stories for Rafael beyond this series.
Given how popular the series is, I don’t want to let it sit too long before bringing it back. I have enough material for this to be an ongoing series for the foreseeable future. The original five issues have a clear arc, and it escalates with each issue—by issues three and four, we hit a point of no return. It’ll take some sequel magic to get back on track for the next NKW series, but I think it’ll be good.
What was the best part or high point?
Day one surpassed everything we’d done with entire campaigns prior to that, outside of Naked Kaiju Woman #1. I never could have anticipated it would fund as well as it did on day one. I thought it would do well and probably get close to what issue one did, maybe with some people dropping off—that’s typically how comics go.
Fortunately, we had so many new people coming in and catching up, so we quickly replaced anyone we may have lost from issue one. Many of them were there day one, which was absolutely wonderful.
What was the worst part or low point?
The cancellations. We ended up with 754 backers who stuck around, but the number of people who would back, drop out, back again, and drop out again was significant. I had about four days where I lost around 30 people each day.
I posted in the ComixLaunch group asking what was going on, and Tyler James explained that when you’re doing really well, everything grows—including the people who back out. It always hurts a bit when you think you’re hitting certain heights and then see it scale back, but I totally get it. People make choices and reconsider, especially in tough times.
This is the highest amount of cancellations we’ve ever had, but also the highest amount of backers by far, so it makes sense. It’s a bit nitpicky to complain given how happy I am with the campaign overall.
How are you different now that the campaign is over?
This campaign solidified that Naked Kaiju Woman is what runs Pesto Comics at this point—it’s the most profitable and makes everything sustainable. Our current Big Smoke Pulp campaign is a close second, mostly due to ticket price and higher margins on the book side versus comics.
Naked Kaiju Woman makes all the money for Pesto Comics and helps pay off losses from other campaigns. I wasn’t sure issue two would follow in the footsteps of issue one, let alone surpass it. Now knowing I can rely on it to do very well changes how I plan campaigns throughout the year and how these will offset risks we take elsewhere.
What surprised you most?
Again, day one. The pace was unlike anything I’d seen before on Kickstarter. I have three screens at my desk, and one just has the campaign running in the background. With Naked Kaiju Woman #2, the numbers were going up nonstop—it was constant.
Day one outdid every full campaign I’d done before in funding, and came very close in backer count. While I made efforts with meta ads and pre-launch promotion, I was still definitely surprised by the turnout.
What’s your biggest concern now that the campaign is over?
How do I replicate this success with other campaigns without doing Naked Kaiju Woman? Is it just the big naked lady that draws people in? I don’t think so—if you’re just looking for nudie content, there’s tons of that available for free or on Kickstarter.
There’s got to be a reason people are into Naked Kaiju Woman specifically. Finding that alchemy and making it repeatable without relying on naked women to sell books is what I’m thinking about. I’m aware of the exploitation angle—the naked lady on the cover gets you in the door, but the story is about how that reflects on society. It’s fun, but I have that theme in mind. The question is: how do I replicate this success without being exploitative?
What worked well?
The whole campaign worked surprisingly well. The variant covers performed great—Ricardo Faccini (who I’ve worked with since Unlimited Udo) and James Edward Clark both knocked it out of the park. Riccardo and I are working on a new project together, and I’m excited about that collaboration.
Really, what worked well was the team we assembled. Everyone who worked on this book—Rafael, JP, and the variant artists—did something incredible and really added to the whole thing.
Can you do it again?
I sure hope so! Naked Kaiju Woman #3 is in pre-launch right now and will launch sometime in Spring. Rafael has sent about eight or nine pages so far, and we’re working through the coloring process with JP. We plan to go straight through to issues four and five after that.
What did backers really resonate with?
The catch-up tier. Many people who didn’t read issue one were happy to get a bundle at a slight discount—either digital or physical catch-up. That went really well.
What completely bombed?
Nothing really bombed, but I did screw up. I normally include a Digital Pesto bundle with everything we’ve done from Pesto Comics, but I forgot to add that tier this time. With all the new backers, that would have been a great option. People did get add-ons instead and picked books that interested them, but it wasn’t what I intended.
What will you never do again?
Sending out surveys while on vacation. BackerKit had issues calculating shipping, which created a situation where it was crediting everyone’s shipping. Some people noticed the error, while others used the credit to try getting extra books.
I was in Bologna and just hit the button without my usual final check at my desk where I run sample surveys. I ended up spending much of my time there manually correcting surveys. With 700+ backers, it was quite a bit of work. So my answer: I’ll never rush the surveys again—I’ll test them and make sure they work properly.
And with that, I want to thank you for reading this post-mortem. I hope this data and information—including the vibes of how the campaign went—serves you well, whether you’re a backer interested in the process or a creator looking to understand what makes a successful campaign.
I’ll be back with a regular, shorter post next week. About what? I’m not sure yet, but it’ll be fund as always!
Thanks again. Until next time…
